I'll open the conversation up about psychopath kids and school shootings. There is a lot to talk about here. Emotionally it was very upsetting to me as I see so many similarities between my son and this killer. We just keep thinking that could be us and we wouldn't be surprised.

One thing worth talking about regrding this kid is I heard he was adopted and both adoptive parents died - heart attack and pneumonia. Just speculating, but I wonder if these deaths were a result of PTSD or maybe even he sabotaged them. Also I heard that the police had visited this kids house (while with his adoptive parents) at least 30 times. I believe that is enough to kill someone from stress or at least destroy your immune system. Our son has probably had the police come to our house for him about 6-8 times, but if he had been home instead of in the institutions we put him in, I'm sure we would be up to 30 or more visits too. The thing is everyone who knew him knew he was capable of this, and no one investigated. Even if they investigated, what could they really do with the current state of our mental health system and legal system.

It made me thankful that we had put our son in the dependency system so he could get institutional care he needs to keep him and others safe. Also, with having a judge periodically review the situation she can make rulings to restrict some of his activities and provide services that he requires.

I'm not going say anything about the gun issues except I know that kids like mine do not care about laws and they can easily find friends who will get them illegal guns if they choose to. To me the real problem is the mental health crisis in our nation and that psychopaths go un-diagnosed, untreated, and there is no way to lock up the mentally ill who are dangerous. Another problem is that schools try to integrate dangerous and special needs kids with regular kids first before a more restrictive IEP school is required. Also, a parent can opt not to enroll the student in the special ed courses or schools and keep them in regular schools, even if professionals see a danger and recommend an IEP school. Finally, the biggest failure here is the failure of the FBI to follow the leads they already had on this kid before he killed.

We are going through another emotional transition this week. My son is in his fifth residential institution and will most likely get discharged to some type of group home in April. My son continues to give us cards and letters telling how he still wants to come home. He gave a valentines card saying “I’ll be home soon” and he listed everyone in the family to say happy Valentines day to. It was spooky because he remembered family that he had only met once when he was a toddler, or that he had only heard people talk about. It felt more like a threat to us. Have you seen that in other psychos that they remember details like addresses and names like that? I’ve heard that before from some source. Anyway on top of that and the shooting, we are being asked to have the “you are not coming home conversation” with our son. Although this has been our intention since we started the court process, we have never told him that directly and I do not want to crush his hopes. But I know he really doesn't care about us, he is just trying to manipulate us to get back to a environment where he feels he can do what he wants to do.

Hi, the idea that this kid could have possibly and I do say possibly because I wasn't there had something to do with the parent's demise strikes me as possible. There are other ways to destroy another person. Wear them down physically is another method. That was also my very first thought and it also had me wondering. It isn't like they were old. I am also guessing what you said plus I would add they likely had a weak autoimmune system. The immune system and PTSD are what most if not all victims of psychopaths develop. Parents are on a high-speed roller coaster ride. I am not a genius but anyone can imagine what this level of stress does to the body

I am guessing here and you might help me understand better. Victims in relationships tend to become isolated them from family, friends etc. I wonder what the extended family is like for this kid. I haven't seen family members in any news clips I have watched, have you?

Sadly, I am sure you are right. You would very likely be at that 30+ police call figure. What a holy shame that doesn't start to trigger some red flags in society. That is very interesting about putting these at-risk kids in with other kids, I wonder what genius thinks this is a good and safe idea??? Scary. I also found it scary in our chat when you mentioned that these foster parents who get these kids when they are in transition aren't informed of any issues. Seems very negligent of the system to play hide the ball with foster parents. I clearly would not like to unwittingly be put in that situation.

When we had our chat on my podcast you really helped bring better clarity to me on the child psychopath issue. Parents of children were the very first ones to post at the tiny little starting forum. Over the years I must say you have been around the longest. I admire your strength and we can only keep hoping that some good will come out of this unimaginable tragedy. I don't want us to become desensitized.

Wasn't your son like 3 years old when he first tried to push or encourage your wife and daughter down the stairs?

Yes when he arrived at 1.5 yrs, he was aggressive, biting and attempting to push people down the stair.

That was an interesting point about family members not mentioned. We have an extensive extended family even close by, but none of them are willing to help or take in our son because they know what we have gone through and have been burned personally by him. I'm sure it was the same for this killers extended family if there were any.

The FAPE laws require education to be Free and Appropriate, also they require the least restrictive environment to be used. Usually that means they need to have the kid in a regular public school before being placed in a more restrictive special ed school. Also, the parent has to agree to IEP evaluation and special services are only provided if the parents consent and the school agrees that special services are required. With Psychopathy, the kid is usually good at appearing normal to outsiders so getting school to see the problem can be a challenge. It the child has been hospitalized for behaviors they will not be able to deny diagnosis's from doctors. In our state, the parents can opt not to utilize the special services and keep the child in a regular school setting. If a parent decides to not use the IEP, a judge can overrule that, but first the child must be in the court system either through Juvenile delinquency or as in our case in dependency. So it's almost impossible with the current laws to keep these kids out of mainstream schools and these types of kids are becoming more and more common.

Yes, one of the foster families my son was with had no idea of his history until we told her. I believe this is negligent, unfair, and dangerous. The foster family this killer was with last clearly had no clue about the seriousness of the kids condition. This is why I maintain detailed records of my son's history. I can easily provide a new caregiver, therapist, or institution, a link to all my files where they can review extensive history and diagnosis going back for years. It's helped in most cases with counselor and guardians. There have been some institutions who refuse to regard his past diagnosis and would rather believe their fantasy that he is just a poor misunderstood orphan that they can rescue.

I didn't know the adoptive parents were not old. I assumed they were. I do believe the PTSD ultimately killed them then. We can feel our stress and blood pressure increase by just getting a phone call from our son. When he was living in our house it was just a constant war zone (and we are not normally a angry or uptight family). Also, having a kid like that will isolate you pretty quick and remove any support system you might have. No one understands, he plays people against you, and for the most part the kid appears great to everyone else. Talking about your problems with friends only makes you look like bad parents. We still have not regained anything like a healthy social life, and even the family who are close by just stopped visiting. They may also feel threatened having this kid in their lives and possibly resent us for that (my thoughts).

Regarding the gun issue, I heard that if the child had been involuntarily placed in treatment (hospitalized involuntarily by police), he would be on a no gun list. Because he had been admitted voluntarily, they did not revoke those rights. My son has been admitted many times, but I'm not sure if any of them were on the books as involuntary. Even when the police had done so because of violent threat, the hospital often asked us to sign a voluntary admission form so that he could stay longer.

Funny, I just spoke to our family therapist, the one who knows my son is a psychopath. He said he was just thinking about us last week although I hadn't spoken to him in 4 months. He was making the connection of this psycho killer kid with our child. He even said he heard that people are suspecting the kid might have autism and he chuckled. This is what someone suggested of our son too. Autistic kids are not intentional killers, psychopaths are. Why does society pretend psychopaths don't exist when they are so clearly here? It's almost as though everyone thinks psychopaths are fictional characters that only exist in horror movies.

Hi, I guess from seeing the defense their goal at this point is to keep him off death row. That is something that always comes up. These ruthless killers turn a machine gun on others in a horrific way but yell like crazy to save their own skin. I will never understand this but it is so common. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other on the death penalty but am just sharing my observations.

I haven't heard anything about any other relatives in the area speaking up?

Autism is something we never used to hear about. Is it the new cover for these kids?

We have a long way to come with this topic. I get the idea people would prefer to think these kids just drop out of the sky. There is typically always a pattern.

In my experience, they will turn to any other diagnosis except the psychopath (ASPD), and for kids it's anything but Conduct Disorder which is the precursor to ASPD. I think we need to start calling it what it is train our school counselors to better recognize a ASPD bound kid and get him services as quick as possible.

I was glad to hear that Senator Marco Rubio in FL was proposing a more comprehensive mental health screening and services for kids in Florida. It would require schools to report dangerous behaviors to the police department which would put them on a no gun list. I would support that fully knowing my son would be put on such a list (even though I also support the 2nd amendment).

It's only been two weeks, but it feels like this topic is old news now and will soon be forgotten until the next one occurs again. At which time the same old arguments will be made, but little will done. Am a getting cynical?

I do believe it is every parents responsibility to know what their child is capable of, and to report all dangerous behaviors to professions, and to seek out all the services that are available. The best way to do that it have them admitted to a hospital when a dangerous episode has occurred (make sure your insurance will cover it). It's a horrible process, but its worth the trouble in order to get professional assessments, records, and resources. Also, requesting a social worker will open up more resources too. If you don't have medicaid it may cost a small fee, but these people usually understand troubled kids like this and will start you on a path to getting them more help.

I agree with you about the parents being responsible to tell the authorities. The problem that I see and I prefer to see solutions but coming up blank, is if the authorities don't know what they are looking for then we are still at square one.

I did talk about the social issue surrounding these kids in today's podcast. I wish I could be more positive, but what that means to me is we need to keep talking about it.

Personally, I would like to live in a society where everyone isn't on high alert with extreme PTSD and access to high powered rifles. It is a nasty combination. How long do we expect kids to do drills in their schools? The generation before me didn't know much about these things because the biggest drills at that time were to hide under your desk in case of a nuclear attack. I was frankly shocked to hear about all the ongoing drills going on in schools. What kind of world is this?

I had a session with our therapist last night regarding our son. He showed me a letter he had written to several newspapers, and county administrators. Basically, he was highlighting how private professions are not often included in discussions with schools about behavior and treatment. The schools counselors and administrators operate without any outside accountability or reporting to outside authorities or family practitioners who can help. If they were working with law enforcement and private therapist, they could get a clearer diagnosis based on a child's overall behavior and not just the sympathies of an empathetic teacher. In my experience, the schools are not trained to recognize dangerous behaviors and go out of their way to minimize and not report it.

So far no one has responded to his letters. And the media only listens if people are talking about gun control.....

It is sad to watch. The psycho kid killer issue seems to have moved beyond logical ideas to logistics of how to get guns in teachers hands. It is always the answer more guns. Or we can't do anything because of all the guns out there. At some point, a person has to take a second and stop and really think. Who is behind this, well I would guess the same people all along the NRA. That is always their solution. I brought up the psychopath % into the discussion recently on my podcast. Even if you only believe that let's say 2% of the population are psychopaths = of 2K people in a school conservatively 60 or so of them could be psychopaths. I just do NOT see more guns as the solution.

You have brought up an excellent point. The system is insulated against any type of "outside" thinking. What I don't get is this shift over the years. Now we seem to work for these people in charge and the idea that they work for us seems to be lost in all of this. If over 80% of the population want some reasonable gun laws why are we talking about the logistics of arming teachers???

So the topic shifts. The minority is gaslighting the majority who want some action beyond more guns. Mental health overhaul just is a buzz word, that is all it is. It is a way to say unless you are foaming at the mouth crazy and even then there will be exceptions that allow a slobbering nut to buy a gun, why because more guns is the idea behind every conversation.

There are so many factors outside of gun control. My point is that there are many problems with most of our social systems and government agencies and gun control is NOT the central issue. You understand psychopaths better than most people in this country. Of course you know that gun or no gun a dangerous psychopath will kill if he wants to, whether using a knife, a bomb, or capturing and torturing people. Our mental health system, school system, and law enforcement is horribly inadequate at recognizing and dealing with these people and even our FBI can't seem to properly investigate this even with good leads. There are still so many important issues to address here, why are we still talking about gun control?

What we really need are people asking what are the underlying mental health issues here? How can we identify these people sooner, and what restrictions can we enforce on them to protect society as a whole? Yes gun restrictions on the dangerously mentally ill should be part of that, but a very small part of that. As mentioned, if you take away a gun from them, they will just grab a pipe bomb, or some other weapon. We need to talk about how most of these people need to be institutionalized and in long term therapy, which seems to not be even on the table for any of these discussions. Did you know we had such institutions before the 80s, but liberal politicians shut them down, releasing the dangerously mental ill on society? We desperately need to talk about resources for parents, preventative therapy,and preventative institutionalization before a dangerous child commits a felony. This has been my approach with my son, but I had to commit the crime of abandonment and pay ongoing legal fees in order to accomplish this. These options need to be available to parents and support and help need to be more accessible. So please don't pretend that gun control is the easy answer to this problem and that the NRA is the enemy. I am living with this very complicated problem everyday and I know the enemy personally.

In the meantime, while our government is not doing it's job of protecting it's citizens, we as citizens have the right to protect ourselves and taking guns away from people who want to defend themselves is definitely not the answer. If I was a teacher you better believe I would carry and I would fight for that right. I'm not going let some psycho take me and other children down any more than I am letting my son destroy my family.

You say everyone thinks more guns are the solution, it seems to me that the media, the left, and you are saying gun control is the solution. These are very simplistic and naive answers on both sides. They are band aids on a very deep problem that society as a whole doesn't have a clue about. But with your extensive knowledge of psychopaths you understand intimately that these people are very dangerous; psychopaths are dangerous, regardless of what's in their backpacks. If our society does not relearn how to deal with these people, we will continue to have mass shootings, bombings, or worse.